Waverly DUI suspects free to go after $1000 donations to police

Waverly DUI suspects free to go after $1000 donations to police

WAVERLY, Ohio (AP) -- Nearly 100 drunken-driving suspects in this southern Ohio town avoided convictions or jail time last year after making voluntary $1,000 donations to the police department, county records show.

More than a third of the drunken-driving cases filed by Waverly police in Pike County Court last year were dismissed, according to a report published Sunday in The Columbus Dispatch.

The motorists, who typically face three or more days in jail and lengthy license suspensions, simply made the donation and then pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in front of magistrates in mayor's court, according to county records.

Anthony Moraleja, a former Waverly Mayor's Court magistrate, likened the deal to any other plea bargain: offenders receive the reduced offense only after the city gets the money. Plea bargaining is essential to keeping court dockets unclogged, he said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OH_DRUNKEN_DRIVING_DONATIONS_OHOL-?SITE=WBNSTV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Or in this case, from the pokey. Times change. Little else does, though.

PB

uh-huh...

The Magistrate is talking out his, I suspect, well-funded ass.

I live in a community where drinking in public is perfectly legal. No open-container crap in cars or in public.

The cell-phone people are a threat.

And what about those cigarettes (gonna cause how much destruction?)?.

And, for the record, I drink and I smoke (everything), and I am (and will always be) done out on heroin.

And I do not drive.

Pay up and go.

From what I saw, those who paid out did not harm anyone.